156 P. E. Chase on Barometric Indications of a Resisting Aether. 
because the average height of the thermometer from 2 to 154 
(61°-7) corresponds very closely with the average from 165 to 
1> (61°°66). ° 
The greatest unexplained reduction of barometric pressure is 
at 95; the greatest increase, at 204 or 215, Al] these facts ap- 
pear to me to admit of a ready explanation, on the hypothesis 
that the disturbances are caused by the resistance of an ether, 
which is condensed, as Fresnel supposes, by planetary attraction, 
and I can imagine no other hypothesis by which they could be 
satisfactorily accounted for.* 
urn’s inquiry into the nature of heat suggests some 
interesting speculations concerning other effects of rotation than 
those that can be measured by the barometer. Recognizing the 
impossibility that the sun should warm the whole solar system, 
s a simple incandescent body,—the improbability that its heat 
should result from continuous combustion, and the probable ap- 
producing heat of compression, and cold of expansion: 2, that 
the change of eastward velocity from 69,000 miles per hour at 
midnight, to 67,000 miles at noon, (sic) necessarily produces ® 
conversion of motion into heat, and of heat into motion: and 8, 
that if the earth is moving in a resisting medium, by which itis 
so retarded that it approaches the sun at the rate of 1,000, 
miles in 3,000,000 years, its “lift’’ involves the annual abstrac- 
tion of a heat-force equivalent to 752,665,108,390,000 horse 
wer 
The third hypothesis has been often broached ; the indications 
mulation of heat to supply any loss that may arise from radiation 
into space, but it must modify the distribution of beat throughout 
the day in a manner that may be readily calculated. The avail 
able data are not sufficient to furnish us with complete results, 
ae ie 
